jason

emig research is back in business… yay!

Slashdot | Who Owns Your Online Networking Contacts?
Ben Morris writes

“A recent judgement in the UK courts has forced a former employee to hand over details of his business contacts built up through LinkedIn.com while he was employed by his former company. The decision is one of the first in the UK to show the tension between businesses encouraging their employees to use social networking websites, and trying to claim that the contacts should remain confidential when they leave.”

Bombay Crow: Who owns your online networking contacts?

For many people, the idea that your employer can jump upon the networks that you might have built up on Facebook or Linkedin.com is pretty unthinkable - after all, most profiles contain a mixture of colleagues and friends built up throughout an entire career. However, the issue here appears to be the contacts themselves and how they were uploaded to the sites - i.e. straight from Mr Ion’s work address book.

To be honest, I bet Facebook and Linkedin have rights to that intellectual property as well, right? I guess we will never get an internet user’s bill of rights, unless the UN gets involved. Until then, make sure whatever information you have on line leaves little bits of misinformation… just to keep a modicum of chaos in the system.

Great Moments In Journalism: Google News informs us that the Russians are invading the South, of the USA of course.
Now, who really knows what might be true anymore. Better just believe them all… and do nothing based on what you don’t experience first hand.

I think I’d like to visit Samarkand some day…

The SD post: New Map of Carved Up Arctic talks about how the International Boundaries Research Unit - Durham University has this funky new map of the far north. The Toronto Star article says:

The new map gives Canada a vast swath of disputed territory inside the Arctic Circle, including the now navigable Northwest Passage, but suggests Russia and Denmark may have a greater claim to the actual North Pole.

Drawn from a blend of emerging geological data and international law, the map offers a fresh understanding of the overlapping claims to an area thought to contain one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered and recoverable oil and gas resources, according to experts at the International Boundaries Research Unit at England’s Durham University….
“My guess is that the Canadian government has produced a similar map, but they cannot publish it as this is politically sensitive stuff.

“What we’ve done is stick our neck above the parapet by plotting the distances ourselves and releasing it publicly.”

One international law expert told the Toronto Star the area assigned to Canada may strike some Canadians as overshadowed by the sheer extent of Russian territorial claims, particular in the area defined by the submerged Lomonosov Ridge, which at least three countries suggest may be an extension of their respective continental shelves.

“Nothing here is likely to surprise the government in Ottawa,” said Douglas Guilfoyle, an expert in the law of the sea at University College London.

But, he added, ordinary Canadians may be surprised how large Russia’s claim is – and that Canada’s is far less than might be expected.

“One reason is that this map doesn’t show the traditional extent of the polar ice shelf off of Canada’s North, which some would suggest gives Canada a special status. But ice melts – and it seems to be doing so more rapidly today.”

Pratt said ice had no bearing on the IBRU map because “it has no bearing on the law of the sea.

“I can sympathize on a personal level with the concept of ice as a land bridge, but from a legal and technical point of view there is no provision for it,” he told the Star.

“Canada would have to argue for special circumstance in saying that the ice is intrinsically connected to the land.

“It would be unusual because it involves arguing that ice is land rather than sea.”

Nikon announces Coolpix P6000 with GPS: Digital Photography Review

Nikon has announced its flagship compact, the Coolpix P6000. Built around a 13.5 megapixel, 1/1.72 inch sensor (0.41 square cm), the camera has a 4x zoom starting at a respectably wide-angle - equivalent to 28mm. It also records RAW files in a new NRW format that can be converted in-camera or with the forthcoming Windows version of View NX or Windows Imaging Component compatible applications. The other stand-out feature is the inclusion of built-in GPS logging of the locations at which images were recorded. It is expected to start shipping in September for around $500/£429.99/€575.00.

GPS!!~!

Slashdot | MIT Team Working On a $12 Apple (II) Desktop

PC Pro: News: MIT working on £6 Apple desktop

A new project to create a £6 computer is underway at MIT, the same University that spawned the One Laptop Per Child non-profit laptop.
The PCs will be loosely based on Apple 2 machines, first unveiled over 30 years ago, and the team are actively recruiting enthusiasts of the retro computer to help with development.

The Apple 2 was the first mass-produced PC, which sold over 5 million units. It was extremely popular for educational use in the 80s, but is set to get a new lease on life.

Rather than a laptop, the unit will act as a desktop computer and plug directly into a standard television.

Designers on quest to build $12 computer - BostonHerald.com

Derek Lomas, Jesse Austin-Breneman and other designers want to create a computer that Third World residents can buy for less than you probably spend on lunch.

“We see this as a model that could increase economic opportunities for people in developing countries,” said Lomas, part of a team that’s trying to develop a $12 computer at this month’s MIT International Development Design Summit. “If you just know how to type, that can be the difference between earning $1 an hour instead of $1 a day.”

Jeremy and I were talking around this issue last night. He sent me a link to an article that claims that the OLPC’s a con, because it was never about constructionism. I find the notion silly. Constructionism as it was developed (not used) was based on using technology, so the two are wedded. Also, it is MIT, so of course it has to have a toy attached. And bowing in to allow for Microsoft to take it over is just fate. Apple offered their OS for free, but were denied, I’m told, because they wouldn’t open source everything. So now they pay for Microsoft. Hubris crushes all.

To me, the OLPC/XO was never the point. Julia D and I have talked for years about Zero Cost Computing before the OLPC came a long… so it was fun to watch someone do all the work. Sure they’ve failed in a pretty spectacular way. Sure it was an hegomonizing act of technology and pedagogy. But it sure was neat! They tried and have failed. Now more people can try, and fail less. This AppleII group is cool because it is a geek project. OLPC tried to be other than geek, but couldn’t pull it off. I’d like to see a proper educatator’s project some day too.

What is best about all this, is that any time you disrupt the corporate culture, even just a little bit, the world becomes an infinitely bit more human.

Adaptive Design Association: “The Adaptive Design Association works to ensure that children with disabilities get the customized equipment they need to participate fully in home, school, and community life.”

This place is cool. Visited it with Aleja, Andrew and Laura last march. Just got their news letter. I want to go down and take their course on making useful stuff… when I can.

Science News / A Quasi-quasicrystal

Jules Mikhael and his colleagues didn’t set out to make a material with a structure that had never been seen before, much less one that combines order and irregularity in a whole new way, one that Archimedes hinted at 2,000 years ago, one bound together by the Fibonacci sequence. They just wanted to understand a quasicrystal.

Even that wasn’t such a modest goal, because quasicrystals are pretty odd critters. Slice one in half, and there is a sort of mosaic with repeating shapes like tiles, much like a crystal. But here’s the bizarre part: Spin the resulting mosaic a fifth of a turn and often its tiles will line up exactly as they were before you spun it.

But that kind of five-fold symmetry is “forbidden,” because mathematicians have shown that no repeating flat pattern has it. That’s why you’ve never seen a bathroom tiled with pentagons—it’d be impossible to cover the whole surface with no gaps

This is mindbogglingly amazing. You must check out the pictures and read it. And if it doesn’t make sense, keep reading it until it does!

I finally went to play with Cuil, the killer search engine set to destroy Google. I was really impressed. Impressed with all the hype out of something that it this stage really suxxors. I guess the need for accurate results is totally unnecessary when it comes to search engines. Actually, it is not totally useless, but it would appear as if it’s page ranking system just doesn’t exist. Try googling [sic] hungsinger on Cuil. Does jeremy come first? Even though he’s one of the major bloggers. No. He’s on page two, and only his profile on educause. Type in levesque, and at least catsy’s dad comes first.

I’d like to know what in areas where I do know something that what should be at the top IS at the top… that builds at least the illusion of trust that stuff at the top in areas I don’t know might be equally valid.